Page 43 - DMGT406_HUMAN_RESOURCE_MANAGEMENT

Human Resource Management

Notes through process reengineering is that new policies are more readily adopted and followed
by the staff when the staff has had some significant role in their development. Present
these sections as drafts and solicit feedback and then incorporate revisions into the sections
and you will maximize the chance of compliance to your policy. Employees and managers
at all levels will be most likely to support a policy that makes sense, is easy to follow, and
minimizes interference with getting the job done. The best way to get such a policy is to
have all affected parties involved in the development process. Not allowing participation
at the policy creation stage is a frequent downfall of implementation and compliance.
Support can also be enhanced if the policy's impact on the company is clearly explained;
the impact that will be most meaningful to managers is the financial loss that can result
from failing to implement the policy. The ideal situation is when management and staff
can see how a particular policy helps promote the achievement of organizational objectives
and mission.
3. The Role of Procedures and Forms: Many people confuse procedure with policy. A policy
is a predetermined course of action established as a guide towards accepted objectives and
strategies of the organization. It is at a much higher level than a procedure. Procedures are
methods - they are ways of carrying out a policy. Forms may be part of a procedure; in
other words, to carry out a procedure, it may be necessary to complete one or more forms.
For example, your organization may have a policy that every employee who is terminated
or who decides to leave the organization participates in an exit interview. Procedures can
be developed on how that interview should be conducted, while a form or checklist can
help assure and document that a particular exit interview was carried out according to
policies and procedures.
The connection of policy-to-procedure-to-form raises another important point: policy
development needs to be coordinated with procedures and forms management. New
policies or revisions to old policies may spawn new procedures. New procedures may
require revision of old forms or the creation of new ones.
4. Clarity, Conciseness, and Coherence: HR policies should follow the 3C principle: clarity,
conciseness, and coherence. Clarity is extremely important.
Clear writing is understandable and easy to read. If your writing has clarity, your reader
will immediately grasp your meaning; he or she will not have to stop and figure out
meaning. HR policies should be clear and direct. Care should be taken to remove the
unnecessary words. Delete redundancies, needless phrases, overblown phrases, and clichés.
For HR policy to be clear and for subsequent procedures to be exact, each and every policy
that you write should contain accurate and complete information expressed concisely.
Coherence is about good logic, linking sentences, and discernible threads of thought.
Coherent writing will lead the reader through your policy manual. It lets you give a
guided tour of your policy model.
5. Training: Training employees in the area of policy is very important. Making the policy
manual available to staff is a starting point but it is not enough. To help staff to fully
understand policies, they may need to see and hear a presentation - an interactive experience
that goes beyond the document, e-mail.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
5. Human resource forecasts can be very accurate.

6. Small scale units benefit less than large scale undertakings from human resource planning.

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